The present invention relates to security in wireless networks and, more specifically, to preventing unauthorized access to mobile devices in a wireless network.
When corporate information leaves the office on a laptop computer, the ability of the enterprise to protect that information is seriously diminished, thereby creating serious risks. Many of the laptops carried by today's business travelers not only contain many gigabytes of valuable company data, but they also bear a set of keys to the enterprise network in the form of remote access credentials. In other words, unauthorized access to a business traveler's laptop provides a wealth of opportunities for data theft, data corruption, industrial espionage, identity theft, and network penetration.
In recent years, one particular avenue of attack on mobile corporate data has been broadened, quite literally, by the increasingly widespread availability of broadband network connections at, for example, hotels and conferences. Whenever such access is made available, it quickly becomes very popular with business travelers. Hotels increasingly use the availability of broadband connectivity as an incentive to woo guests in this sector. However, the provision of such connectivity for hotel guests and conference attendees presents several challenges and can create new risks. Unlike the employees or family members who typically share a broadband connection in an office or networked home, most hotel guests are strangers to one another and have no desire to share their data with other guests. Hotels and other providers of wireless “hotspots” must therefore provide shared broadband access to the public Internet while keeping private the connections made within their property. Failure to provide appropriate levels of security for guest connections can have negative consequences far beyond complaints from guests. That is, for example, hotels are obliged to provide reasonable levels of protection for guests and their valuables, and so the probability that insecure data connection systems will be abused creates a potential liability for hotels and other providers of wireless broadband Internet access.
It is therefore desirable to provide techniques for protecting data on mobile devices in wireless networks.